DCU society suspended from social activity over ‘nude acts’

Dublin City University has suspended its accounting and finance society from social activity as a result of an election for their first year class representatives which involved “nude acts”.

At the society’s extraordinary general meeting earlier this month, first year students seeking election as their class representative were required to undergo a series of tasks.

The DCU College View reported that the tasks involved dividing students into pairs and asking them to pop a balloon placed in between their hips. The last couple to pop the baloon was eliminated.

Other rounds involved students “shifting”, or kissing each other, in order to move to the next round, or sending messages to their partners stating they were going to break up or that they cheated on them.

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The final round involved students singing different songs while stripping off their clothes or, in one case, another student’s clothes.

In a statement issued on its Facebook page, the accounting and finance society (A&F) said it had been "suspended from social activity for semester one of this year".

‘Offended’

“A&F will ensure that this does not happen again and would like to take this opportunity to apologise to any member who was offended by last weeks EGM,” it said. “We will continue to run accounting grinds, networking sessions and other non social activities during semester one.”

The university’s feminist society reportedly said the society’s activities revealed a “boy’s club” culture at the college.

However, the head of the A&F society told the College View that no one was treated differently and half of its committee were women.

University authorities deemed the society’s actions to breach its respect and dignity policies, and ruled that the society’s committee should attend a “respect and dignity workshop”.

A spokeswoman for DCU said “inappropriate behaviour of this nature is not tolerated by the university”.

“The issue was dealt with promptly and decisively by the University’s Society Life Committee (SLC) which is directly responsible for the governance of student societies at DCU,” she said, adding that it was decided that the students involved in organising the event in question “should undergo a training workshop focusing on the topic of respect and dignity”.